Dunbury:
“Nevertheless, the thing we heard this morning was a black panther. I would swear by it.”
“All right, so a black panther is out there roaming these woods. How the hell did it get into Garth Amboise’ room?”
But to this question, Professor Dunbury could only shake his head:
“I’m completely at a loss, sir. It seems impossible.”
“Completely impossible indeed. But I’ll give you this, Dunbury: the Coroner’s report stated that the saliva in question must have come from a predator.”
And again, they could only look at each other.
Until Nina, remembering the people who’d come trooping through her room during the last hour, said to James Thompson:
“I’ve had a thought. It’s a crazy one.”
“It would have to be to explain this.”
“All right. Can we three go downstairs and look at Amboise’ room again?”
“Yes. If that would do any good. But I don’t see any––”
“I’m not sure I can either, but it’s the best I’ve got. And I’ll need you to send one of your men to get a couple of other people, so they can meet us there.”
“Sure. Which people?”
She told him.
Then they struck out for the room of the deceased Garth Amboise.”
It had been cleaned completely since she remembered it. The sheets were gone, the bed bare, but large pools of burgundy stain still marked the carpet.
“No window,” Officer Thompson was saying. Besides, we’re up on the second floor. I don’t see how anything that big could have gotten in.”
“The storm’s getting worse,” said Nina, quietly. “Anything outside, anywhere near here, might have been driven in for shelter.”
“Driven in where? Surely the thing didn’t just come prancing in through an open door?”
“No, but––”
“Hi!”
“Did you send for us?”
And there in the doorway, beaming as usual, stood Pat and Jim Hershey.
“We did,” said Nina.
“How can we––”
“––help you?”
“Your theory of the crime. I wonder if you’d go over it again, precisely as you told it in my room just a little while ago?”
They both stepped forward into the room.
“Sure, we––”
“––could!”
Pat Hershey said:
“You start, Jim!”
“Alright, honey. Let’s go over it again. The woman arrives around six.”
“No, we said five.”
“How many times do I have to tell you this? Five is too early!”
“Okay, so you think it’s dark. Who cares? Now, if you could talk about the theory again––”
“I will, if you’ll just let me. The problem is how the killer got out of the room.”
“Oh, we’re back to this closed door stupidity!”
“The answer to that is the secret tunnel!”
“And I’ve told you and told you I’ve never agreed to that notion!”
“That’s because you have no imagination!”
“I’ve got a lot more than you’ve got!”
Upon saying which, Pat Hershey ran to the far side of the bed and gripped a vase which stood next to the wall.
She raised it menacingly above her head, and was about to hurl it at her husband.
When, with a great groaning and squeaking of mechanisms, a panel opened in the wall itself, revealing a gaping hole.
That led, clearly, into a tunnel.
Finally James Thompson spoke, saying:
“Well, I’ll be damned.”
Pat Hershey put down the lamp, which, clearly, had triggered the mechanism, and said to her husband:
“You are so brilliant!”
Nina remembered what Margot had told her that very morning:
‘They fight like cats and dogs when they’re actually writing. But once the book is over, they’re proud as punch of each other.’
And this book, to them, is over.
“Darling, you’re the smartest man in the whole world; you’re more brilliant than Shakespeare even.”
“It was nothing, honey.”
She put her arm around him:
“You’re the most wonderful writer I know.”
“No, you are!”
“No you are, Jim! And, my God, I want you so much right now!”
And so saying, she dragged him from the room.
Causing James Thompson to say:
“Look at the two of them. They really are cute together.”
Nina glared at him.
Finally, Dunbury walked to the opening of the tunnel, peered into it, and said:
“It does lead down, probably to an opening out onto either another tunnel, or to the river itself.”
Thompson joined him at the tunnel opening, saying softly:
“Rumor always had it that Confederate soldiers would make their way here, even after the place was in Union hands. The staff would hide them, maybe in tunnels like these. Escape tunnels. Now, if the animal were really seeking shelter, it might have made its way into the opening at the water’s edge. It might have been attracted by smells and heat, and made its way up here.”
“It would have been starved for food,” said Nina. “The storm had made it impossible for it to feed.”
Dunbury:
“How could it have opened the panel door? I ask myself.”
To which Thompson:
“We know that the lamp triggered the door from the outside. But it’s possible that mere weight would open it outward.”
Nina:
“So that anyone—or thing—coming up from the inside would only have to push against it to make it open.”
“And that,” said Dunbury, “our animal, our panther, would certainly have done—sensing meat on the other side of the wall.”
“All right, but then how––”
Thompson was interrupted by the door of the room opening into the corridor, and Margot and Mildred the cook entering.
They both stood gaping for a time at the tunnel’s entrance.
Finally Margot stammered:
“What in God’s name is that?”
Nina was about to answer but Mildred interrupted her, saying calmly:
“It’s the old escape tunnel, Ms. Garvin.”
“The what?”
“The old escape tunnel.”
“You knew it was here?”
“Oh yes, ma’am.”
“Then why didn’t you tell us?”
“The girls was afraid you’d make them clean it.”
There was little to be said to that. So Margot finally broke the silence by saying, quietly:
“You all better get downstairs. Especially you, Officer Thompson.”
“Why, ma’am? What’s the trouble?”
“Dinner’s almost over. Sylvia Duncan has made up her mind about the HBO winner.”
“Do you know who it is?” asked Nina.
Margot shook her head:
“No. But whoever it is, the others are going to tear to pieces.”
“Margot,” interjected Nina. “We think Garth Amboise was killed by a panther. Eaten alive!”
Margot merely shook her head, saying:
“He was lucky.”
So saying, she turned and left.
The rest of them followed.
Dinner was chaos of course. The cozy writers all knew that the big announcement was imminent, and their minds were racing with fevered frenzy through the marvelous benefits of being rich and famous and going out and living in Hollywood and helping to choose the star of the new series and going to the Academy Awards program even though it was just TV and not movies, but, of course, there would be a movie and it would win the award for best writing and there would be the BIG SPEECH in which one said “I would like to thank everyone who helped me in creating this series, and I want especially to ac
knowledge my etc., etc., etc., and then there would be MILLIONS AND MILLIONS AND MILLIONS OF DOLLARS which could be used to fly to Aruba and the Costa Brava and all those places where one could just sit on the beach with one’s laptop and write and drink Mai Tai’s and never have to worry about paying rent or working a real job ever again.
There was a good deal of shouting in the room now as tension increased, and more hard objects––chicken wings, biscuits, oranges––were hurled seemingly at random targets.
“I told you,” Margot hissed at one her staff members, “not to serve any more biscuits. Or chicken parts for that matter!”
The woman, obviously flustered, could only shake her head:
“We didn’t at first. But they were throwing mashed potatoes.”
Finally Margot was able to buttonhole Harriet Crossman, who was watching intently the scene before her:
“Harriet, can’t you stop this?”
Harriet merely turned and looked at her, saying:
“Stop what?”
“Stop what’s going on out there in my dining room!”
A shrug:
“Obviously, you’ve never seen a literary conference before.”
“But the food?”
“It’s not bad. We’ve had worse, although there have been numerous complaints about the fried okra.”
“No, no, I mean throwing the food!”
“What about it?”
“Can’t you make them stop it?”
Harriet Crossman thought about this for a time and finally said, quietly:
“I don’t know. It’s become such a tradition––”
“This is insanity.”
But, after what seemed an eternity, dinner did actually end.
And it was time for the big announcement.
Nina and Margot were standing in the back of the room, as Harriet Crossman took the podium:
“Well we’ve had another splendid meal!”
“DOWN WITH THE OKRA!”
“NO MORE GRITS!”
“Now, now, other cultures other customs. But that’s not the important thing now. The important thing now is the announcement that we’ve all been waiting for. The announcement that will serve as a kind of crowning star to our guild, and a vehicle to fame and fortune for one of our members. Ms. Sylvia Duncan of Los Angeles, as you know, has been conducting intensive interviews with each of you for the entire day. It was, of course, rather unfortunate that this work, as well as the other vital work that The Guild must deal with, had to be interrupted by the murder of Mr. Amboise. But we did not let that stop us. We marched on like troopers, and we will continue to do so until the conference officially ends in two days. Whatever remains, though, will be somehow anti-climactic. For the highlight of our gathering is before us now, at this moment. For a new Jessica is ready to be born—and I have the honor to introduce to you—Ms. Sylvia Duncan!”
Thunderous applause.
All writers on their feet, many of them holding cats high in the air now, so that the small animals could be visible to Sylvia Duncan, who, smiling, was taking her place before the microphone.
Finally, the bedlam died sufficiently for her to begin:
“I want to thank all of you, and, of course, all of your cats––”
HA HA HA! HA HA HA!
“For what has been an immensely enjoyable day for me. I’ve gotten to know so many people, both real and fictional. But you are all such fine authors that it’s the fictional ones who stand out to me. And such a variety, a diversity, of characters! The whole of humanity is shown in your work and in your settings! Retired librarians, retired eighth-grade school teachers, retired high school teachers, retired nurses, retired dental technicians, retired housewives—and all of them working in places so different as a quaint seaside village of one thousand in lower Maine, and a quaint village of almost three thousand in northern Massachusetts. My mind, I must tell you, is spinning.”
“BUT WHO’S THE WINNER!”
“WHO IS THE NEXT JESSICA?”
And of course the refrain:
“I AM JESSICA!”
“I AM JESSICA!”
“I AM JESSICA!”
But Sylvia Duncan merely raised her hands high over her head, and, laughing, continued:
“It may well be that several of you will become as well known as the creator of Jessica Fletcher. I fully expect our new HBO series to be wildly successful, and to spawn progeny!”
“UP WITH PROGENY!”
“HUZZAH FOR THE PROGENY!”
More from Sylvia:
“But, of course, all of this depends on our beginning. It depends on our choosing as our first cozy heroine a genuinely riveting character; a character who will make small retired old ladies around the world say, ‘I can solve murders, too! I live in a quaint little ocean-side town and I’m smarter than our bungling police chief—bring on the next not too violent murderer—AND LET ME AT HIM!”
“YES! YES!”
“BRAVO FOR SYLVIA!”
“BRAVO FOR HBO!”
“BRING ON NOT-TOO-VIOLENT MURDERERS!”
“BRING ON THE BUMBLING POLICE OFFICERS!”
Another calming wave from Sylvia, who was actually beaming now, and whose radiant smile would have eclipsed that of Jessica Fletcher behind her, had that smile not been fifty times larger than hers.
“And so, dear ladies—and two surviving gentlemen—we shall bring them on! But first, we must bring on someone else. Someone who has created a truly spellbinding character! Someone who will blaze the trail of glory for all of you!”
“WHO IS IT?”
“WHO IS THE CHOSEN ONE?”
“TELL US! TELL US! TELL US! TELL US!”
“And so I shall! Esteemed members of The Guild of American Cozy Writers, the heroine of our new HBO series—is Ms. Nina Bannister!”
Complete silence in the room, which, for an instant at least, resembled the House of Wax.
Finally, several voices blended together and asked the same question:
“Who?”
“Ms. Nina Bannister!”
A pause.
Then Sylvia continued:
“I, as many of you I’m sure, are already aware of Ms. Bannister through her political activities and her creation of the nationally acclaimed Lissie Party. But after hearing of her exploits for the past months and years, her success in saving her home town of Bay St. Lucy from huge gambling and tourist interests, her role in protecting the entire Gulf Coast from eco-terrorists, her adventures in Austria and Washington––”
There were more voices now, and the writers had gotten to their feet:
“Austria?”
“Washington?”
“Those aren’t cozy places!”
“And who is this woman, anyway?”
“She isn’t one of us!”
“She’s not even a writer!”
The coziests, outraged, had split into two groups now, one advancing toward Sylvia at the podium, and the other advancing toward Nina and Margot.
All of them were shouting.
To Nina:
“What qualifies you, of all people, even to be a cozy writer?”
Nina knew nothing to say.
She looked quickly behind her; there was no place to hide, no place to escape to.
“Come on, tell us! What qualifies you to be a cozy writer?”
“Well, I do have,” she said, quietly, timidly, haltingly, “a cat. His name is Furl. He––”
But she was interrupted by shouts directed at Sylvia on the other side of the room.
“Who’s going to write the scripts for the TV shows?”
“We’ve got the plots already, from Ms. Bannister’s own real life exploits. As for the dialogue and description, we’ll probably just hire Hollywood ghost writers.”
This was precisely the wrong thing to say.
“GHOST WRITERS!”
“WHAT?”
“ARE YOU CRAZY?”
On the other side of the room,
the group shouting at Nina had surrounded her and was closing in.
“Where do you live, anyway?”
She thought about lying, and saying:
‘A little village on the Massachusetts coastline.’
But she did not.
Probably because she did not know the names of any little villages on the Massachusetts coastline.
Instead she answered:
“Mississippi.”
Realizing how stupid that was, even as she said it.
The crowd reacted as though they were a small fire upon whom gasoline had been poured.
WHOOOSH!
“Mississippi! That’s the WORST possible place for a cozy!”
A small voice did pipe up from the middle of the mob, saying:
“Well, except maybe for Arkansas.”
But the blaze continued to roar, gaining in intensity and hatred:
“WHO ARE THE ECCENTRIC LOVABLE CHARACTERS WHO LIVE AROUND YOU?”
Desperately—for the ring of people around her had tightened, so that they were only a foot or so away—Nina pointed at Margot and said:
“Her!”
But this only made things worse, and the group continued to howl and scream:
“SHE’S NO MORE A COZY CHARACTER THAN YOU ARE!”
“FRAUDS!”
“NON-COZIES!”
“SEND THEM HOME TO MISSISSIPPI!”
“DOWN WITH THE LISSIES! DOWN WITH FURL!”
On the other side of the dining hall, Sylvia, who’d obviously not expected the degree of vindictiveness occasioned by her announcement, was trying to enlarge upon her vision:
“You see, we’ll make each of the episodes be some kind of ‘Change.’ The first will be Sea Change; then the one in which she solves the actor’s murder will be Set Change, because it has to do with the theater; then, when Nina goes back to teaching and becomes the women’s basketball coach, the episode can be Game Change. Then––”
But these plans only worsened the rage and drew the crowd, which now was acting like a lynch mob, in closer:
“THOSE ARE THE STUPIDEST COZY TITLES I’VE EVER HEARD!”
“WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO PUT ON THE BOOK COVERS? THE BACK OF HER HEAD?”
Sylvia was growing desperate now, and Nina could see the look of terror in her eyes, as though she were a deer surrounded by savage wolves.
“But, but, listen, people will like the stories, I promise you, and we won’t have to actually go to Mississippi to shoot the episodes, and, and––”
Climate Change: A Nina Bannister Mystery (The Nina Bannister Mysteries Book 7) Page 20
